


now and forever, into eternity and beyond

by kythen



Series: Fics for Others [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Birthday Party, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Dancing, oikawa's party is alien-themed because of course it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kythen/pseuds/kythen
Summary: It's Oikawa's eighteenth birthday and he has only one wish.





	now and forever, into eternity and beyond

**Author's Note:**

> Fic for Risa!

The streamers are tangled the moment Oikawa pulls them out of the box, an unholy mess of neon green wires with little grey spaceships trapped in their midst. He could have gone the easy way and bought new ones, or even better, gone without streamers at all, but as he looks at the little paper spaceships with their tiny alien passengers, Oikawa feels a pang of sympathy for them and gets down to the painstaking task of freeing them.

No one had told him that turning eighteen would be full of nostalgia, teetering somewhere between childhood and adulthood, moving forward and backward all at once as he tries to figure out where he should stand. Turning eighteen means having to organise his own birthday party, looking for and renting a space big enough to hold a group of rowdy high schoolers. But, turning eighteen also means having the freedom to decorate the room _any_ way he likes and if he says space aliens are the way to go, space aliens are the way to go and no one can call him out for it.

"You're going to rip them at this rate, Shittykawa," Iwaizumi comments from over Oikawa's shoulder as Oikawa struggles with a knot almost the size of his fist. "Man, these things are ancient. I didn't know you still had them."

"I begged my mom shamelessly to let me get them for my birthday ten years ago, of course I'm not going to just throw them away," Oikawa grits out, wedging his fingernail into a gap between two wires and tugging them apart as hard as he dares.

"By the time you get that untangled, another ten years probably would have gone by—just in time for your twenty-eighth birthday," Iwaizumi calls over his shoulder as he walks away, going to poke around in the other boxes they had carried into the room.

"You know, Iwa-chan, you could offer to help me instead of waiting around for my twenty-eighth birthday," Oikawa says, his voice saccharine sweet as he finally loosens the knot with no small amount of vicious tugging.

"I am," Iwaizumi says, squatting over a box. "Someone has to get this place set up since the host himself obviously isn't going to do it."

"That's what I keep you around for, Iwa-chan, my hero." Oikawa makes a small triumphant noise as the tangle of streamers comes apart in his lap, spilling out onto the floor in a grey and green sprawl.

It takes the better part of an hour to finally untangle all the streamers, the little space aliens waving their thanks at Oikawa as he lays them flat on the floor. Oikawa stretches, working the kinks out of his back as he looks around. While he had been occupied with the streamers, the room had slowly come together around him, tables and chairs neatly arranged, cans of drinks both alcoholic and non-alcoholic in orderly lines on one table, and a speaker setup sitting on another. Soft music pipes through the speakers and Oikawa recognises it from Iwaizumi's playlist.

Iwaizumi's back is turned to him but Oikawa hears faint humming coming from him as Iwaizumi pulls out the snacks they had bought with the funds they had pooled together. Iwaizumi hadn't needed to chip in—Oikawa had insisted, very loudly in the middle of the supermarket—but when Oikawa had come out with an armful of snacks for the party, Iwaizumi had been right behind him with another armful, scowling at Oikawa as if daring him to say anything about it. Oikawa hadn't told him then, and wouldn't tell him now, but he had been thankful for that.

Oikawa is thankful for a lot of things and on the day of his birthday, more than ever, he is thankful that Iwaizumi is here to help him with the little things like buying snacks for his party, helping him to decorate the room, and not judging his taste in streamers. Eighteen years is a long time for someone like Oikawa and now that he thinks about it, he has spent almost all of them with Iwaizumi. He had been there when Oikawa first got the spaceship streamers for his eighth birthday party and Oikawa imagines that he will be there at Oikawa's twenty-eighth birthday party, standing there under those same streamers, his eyes amused as he turns back to Oikawa and asks, "You _still_ have them?"

And Oikawa wouldn't have it any other way. He would keep those streamers for ten years and longer, until all the aliens waved goodbye at him from within their spaceships and crumbled into dust, if it means that he could have Iwaizumi by his side for all eternity. Standing here on the cusp of his seventeen and eighteenth year, Oikawa knows what he would wish for on the day of his birthday when it has been the same wish he has had ever since he realised that the world would be so very different if he had never met Iwaizumi.

"You done with those?" Iwaizumi asks, coming over as he sees Oikawa taking a break, nodding at the streamers at Oikawa's feet.

"Finally," Oikawa exhales noisily, leaning back on his hands.

"No time to rest. The guests are going to be here soon, birthday boy." Iwaizumi nudges Oikawa's thigh with a foot, repeating the action more forcefully when Oikawa doesn't budge.

Oikawa exhales again and gets to his feet, taking the streamers with him. Iwaizumi brings over a stepladder and Oikawa drifts over to a corner of the room that looks like a good place to start. It is mindless work, taping one end of the streamer to a corner of the ceiling then moving across the room to do the same there. Without complaint, Iwaizumi follows him with the stepladder, holding it in place as Oikawa ascends and descends, his knee twinging at the repetitive motion. Iwaizumi knows better than to offer to take over but he tracks Oikawa's movements with a watchful eye, his grip firm on the stepladder.

Iwaizumi has stopped humming and the music barely reaches the corner they are in, the faintest ghost of a melody straining towards them. Oikawa thinks he recognises the song and he hums in his throat, trying to pick up the lyrics, when he steps back and his foot comes down on air. The world jerks for a startling moment, Oikawa's vision fills with the ceiling, and he braces himself for the fall as his hands reach out and fail to catch on the smooth surface of the wall.

Arms brace him from behind, strong and steady against his back, and Oikawa finds his footing on the missed step shakily. His heart is still racing, pounding from the nearly disastrous meeting with the floor, and hands guide him down to the floor carefully. As Oikawa steps onto solid ground, he turns and Iwaizumi is still there, one hand grasping Oikawa by the waist and his other hand tight on his forearm. For a dizzying moment, their faces are close enough to touch and Oikawa looks into dark brown eyes that are full of fear, concern, and an emotion Oikawa can't quite put a name to. For a dizzying moment, Oikawa wonders what it would be like to take another step forward.

Then Iwaizumi moves back, dropping his hand from Oikawa's waist but keeping his other hand on Oikawa's forearm. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Oikawa waves it off, his shakes dissolving into nothing now that his feet are firmly rooted. And the thing is, he _is_ fine because Iwaizumi had been there.

Iwaizumi takes his hand away from Oikawa's forearm and in the absence of his touch, the skin on Oikawa's arm ripples with a sudden rush of cold. "If you're fine then let's get the rest of this set up. Is that the last one?"

"Yup," Oikawa says, passing his hand over his forearm absently, trying to rub warmth back into it. "We're doing the posters next."

"What posters?"

\---

"'I want to believe,'" Hanamaki reads off a poster tacked to the wall.

"'They are out there,'" Matsukawa squints at the poster next to him.

"I thought I was here for a birthday party, not an alien conspiracy convention," Hanamaki turns to Oikawa, one eyebrow raised. "Happy eighteenth, by the way."

In the span of an afternoon, Oikawa and Iwaizumi had managed to put together a party from what had started out as a bare room. Iwaizumi had dealt with the tables and chairs, the food and the drinks, and Oikawa had handled everything else. The streamers fly freely above their heads, Oikawa's collection of alien posters line the wall, and the lights in the room have been switched off and replaced by glowing neon green lamps set strategically around the room. Music fills the room, a booming, thumping rhythm in stark contrast to the soft melody that had been playing from Iwaizumi's playlist during the afternoon.

"I thought I told you this was an alien-themed birthday party," Oikawa shouts, raising his voice to be heard over the din, gesturing down to his hoodie and the smiling alien face printed on its front. "You celebrate me, you celebrate the aliens out there."

"I'm getting mixed messages here." Matsukawa puts down the cake box he had been carrying and joins the conversation. "Was Godzilla ever classified as an alien?" His gaze shifts over to Iwaizumi who sports a shirt that most definitely doesn't have anything alien-related on it.

"Iwa-chan's fashion sense is lame so he doesn't have anything alien-themed in his wardrobe." Oikawa sniffs.

"I'd say his fashion sense beats yours at least. That Godzilla shirt's from Uniqlo," Hanamaki says.

Iwaizumi grins and Oikawa catches it out of the corner of his eye. The skin on Oikawa's forearm tingles with the memory of Iwaizumi's hand on him and Oikawa rubs at it absently through his sleeve. They hadn't had any more moments like that after Oikawa's misstep, the both of them too busy with preparations to even face each other, and it leaves Oikawa wondering about it. What _would_ have happened if he had taken another step forward towards Iwaizumi? He wonders if the answer would have been to his liking.

"Don't worry, Oikawa. If it's any consolation, your fashion sense is definitely out of this world," Matsukawa assures him.

"Can I uninvite them from my birthday party?" Oikawa turns to Iwaizumi, aghast.

"Makki complimented my fashion sense so he can stay," Iwaizumi decides.

Hanamaki turns to Matsukawa and pats his shoulder pityingly. "Sorry, bud. Looks like it's the end of the line for you."

Matsukawa sighs. "I got my eyebrows groomed for nothing."

Iwaizumi chuckles and Oikawa grins. "Thanks for the cake anyway, Mattsun."

"No problem." Matsukawa shrugs. "Makki chipped in too."

"It's the least we could do since Iwaizumi was already helping you with the party decorations. Must have been a trial, having just the two of you working on that by yourselves," Hanamaki says, looking meaningfully in Iwaizumi's direction.

Oikawa follows his gaze to Iwaizumi, who meets Hanamaki's look impassively, his features unnaturally stiff. A muscle twitches in Iwaizumi's jaw but when Oikawa looks back at Hanamaki, he is already walking off with Matsukawa, the both of them throwing twin smirks over their shoulders at them.

Oikawa turns his attention back to Iwaizumi, a curious feeling rising in him after that not-so-subtle interaction between Iwaizumi and Hanamaki, but Iwaizumi is already gone, marching away from Oikawa in the direction of the second years from their volleyball team. Oikawa blinks, finding himself suddenly alone with his birthday cake.

"What the hell?" Oikawa mutters under his breath, folding his hand over his forearm, unconsciously touching the spot where Iwaizumi had held him.

From there, the night passes slowly and at every turn, Iwaizumi seems to be slipping away from him, chatting with the volleyball team, classmates from school, or the university students they had played against in practice matches. At the same time, Oikawa is kept away from Iwaizumi by the waves of people who keep coming up to talk to him, the girls from school, friends from middle school, and volleyball players from other neighbouring schools. At times, Oikawa regrets his popularity and this is one of those times when everyone keeps approaching him to wish him a happy birthday and all Oikawa wants to do is to get to Iwaizumi.

It is only when it is close to two in the morning, when the crowd in the room has started to thin and trickle out into the night, that Oikawa finally finds himself face-to-face with Iwaizumi. Oikawa hadn't even managed to get close to him when he was cutting his cake—or getting it smashed in his face by Hanamaki and Matsukawa—even though he had spotted Iwaizumi doubled over and laughing as Oikawa wiped cream and cake off his face. Having Iwaizumi this close to him now, after going an entire night without him by his side, is unexpectedly startling and Oikawa finds himself grabbing Iwaizumi by the arm before he fades away again.

Iwaizumi looks up at him questioningly and Oikawa finds himself blurting out, "Dance with me, Iwa-chan."

The pounding beats of the early evening have been switched out for a softer melody, reminiscent of the afternoon when it had just been Iwaizumi and him, the only two people in the room. For a heart-stopping moment, Oikawa thinks that Iwaizumi might refuse, furrowing his brows and scowling as he shakes Oikawa's hand off his arm, but Iwaizumi does none of that, his face impassive as he asks, "How?"

Oikawa pulls Iwaizumi's arm towards him and puts it around his waist. He watches Iwaizumi's face closely as he takes Iwaizumi's other arm and does the same on the other side of his waist. Looped around Oikawa's waist, Iwaizumi locks his fingers together and his cupped hands rest snugly in the dip of Oikawa's lower back. Then, before either of them can back out of this, Oikawa slides his arms around Iwaizumi's neck and steps in close, lining up their bodies from chest to hip.

"So I know that you suck at dancing, Iwa-chan, so I thought we could just... move to the music," Oikawa mutters, keeping his eyes fixed on the jut of Iwaizumi's throat as he tries not to think about how close the both of them are suddenly and how their bodies are touching and how he might not have thought this through before acting on impulse.

"You're not much better at dancing so let's not pretend this is solely for my benefit," Iwaizumi retorts.

"Whatever. Just keep hugging me and don't step on my feet," Oikawa says as the both of them start swaying to the music, their bodies falling surprisingly easily into the rhythm. The song playing through the speakers is familiar and with a jolt, Oikawa realises that he recognises it from earlier.

"This is a song of yours, isn't it?" Oikawa asks Iwaizumi as they sway on the spot, his hands growing clammy where they rest behind Iwaizumi's neck and his body growing hot where it touches Iwaizumi. He still hasn't managed to make eye contact with Iwaizumi and when he sneaks a glance at him, Oikawa sees him looking over Oikawa's shoulder at the air behind him, his face stiff. In the dim neon lights, Oikawa can't see the colour of Iwaizumi's face but he guesses that it might be red, just like Oikawa's, as if they were a pair of lovestruck teenagers.

"It is," Iwaizumi says and that is all he says.

"It's nice." Oikawa hums along with it. "It sounds romantic. I didn't think you were the type, Iwa-chan."

"It's just one song."

"I bet you have a whole lot of other romantic songs in your playlist," Oikawa tells him. "I mean, look at Makki and Mattsun."

Oikawa turns them around in a slow circle so that Iwaizumi can see what he just spotted across the room and Iwaizumi cracks a smile as he sees Hanamaki and Matsukawa wrapped up in each other's arms, their heads bent low and their foreheads pressed together. Oikawa watches Iwaizumi from under his lashes, taking advantage of his distraction to run his eyes over his face, taking in everything familiar and dear to him. There had been a strange moment from middle school to high school as their bodies lengthened and grew and their faces lost their childlike roundness that Oikawa realised how handsome Iwaizumi was. Girls and guys often flocked to Oikawa but Oikawa could never understand how they missed Iwaizumi when he was always right there next to Oikawa. Standing this close to him, their faces barely a handspan apart, the urge to take a step forward and close the gap between them revisits him again and a shiver passes over Oikawa.

Iwaizumi's eyes widen fractionally and dart away from the slow dancing pair behind Oikawa, fixing on Oikawa's face as he says, "They, uh, they're kissing."

Now that Iwaizumi's eyes are on him, their gazes meet as the both of them forget that they were looking away from each other and whatever Oikawa was about to say in response slips away from him. Oikawa thinks he stops breathing for a moment. Then, his voice strangely airy and his mouth moving independently of his brain, Oikawa finds himself asking, "Iwa-chan, what do you think of me?"

Iwaizumi blinks, his brows furrowing at the sudden change in topic. "Do you want the honest truth or the birthday immunity truth?"

"Be honest."

"You're a brat to people you don't like."

"Hey!" Oikawa says indignantly.

"You wanted honest," Iwaizumi reminds him.

"I did," Oikawa says grudgingly. "Go on."

"You're obnoxious when you win and you hate losing. So you're obnoxious both times, But," Iwaizumi hesitates for the briefest moment, his eyes never leaving Oikawa's face. "I guess you have a reason to be. You work hard, harder than anyone I've ever known, and it's worrying more than reassuring. You should take better care of yourself and you don't."

"Sorry."

"I'll accept that apology when I see you finally doing it."

Oikawa chuckles, somewhat bitterly. "I didn't know so much of me bothered you."

"It does." Iwaizumi's jaw tightens, as if he is having a moment of internal struggle, then relaxes before he continues, "You do."

"So why are you still with me?" Oikawa asks. The breath still hasn't returned to his lungs and he feels light-headed and floaty. At this rate, he thinks he might pass out in Iwaizumi's arms before they reach the conclusion of this conversation, whatever it may be.

"Because someone has to."

"Because we're childhood friends?"

"Because..." Iwaizumi stumbles, faltering as he realises what Oikawa had just led him into. He looks up into Oikawa's eyes and Oikawa sees a mix of emotions in the depths of his eyes, confusion, embarrassment, and that same emotion Oikawa couldn't put a name to earlier in the day. He hopes it is what he thinks it is, and he gets his answer as Iwaizumi swears softly under his breath, "Because—damnit, I'm going to get you for this later, Shittykawa—because I _like_ you."

A knot unravels in Oikawa's chest, like his childhood streamers coming undone and slipping past his hands, buoying him up and above as he knocks his forehead against Iwaizumi's and takes a deep breath before asking, "Is that the honest truth or the birthday immunity truth?"

"It's the truth." Iwaizumi meets his eyes squarely, as if daring him to question him further about it.

Oikawa doesn't, because at this point of time, there are more pressing questions he wants answered like, "So how would you feel if I were to kiss you now?"

"I don't know," Iwaizumi replies carefully, every word a challenge that falls from his lips. Or an invitation. "Maybe you'll have to give it a try."

"Maybe I will," Oikawa says and finally, _finally_ , he leans in, closing the gap between them. In the careful press of lips between them and the trembling touch of Oikawa's hands against Iwaizumi's shoulders, Iwaizumi doesn't pull back, his arms tightening around Oikawa's waist, and Oikawa has Iwaizumi's answer to his question right there. Behind him, rising over the fading melody of Iwaizumi's song, Oikawa hears elated hooting, but he doesn't care, not when this moment stretches out between Iwaizumi and him, a night going slow and reaching out into forever.

**Author's Note:**

> [ _doesn't the night go slow?_ ](https://soundcloud.com/cateyshaw/night-go-slow-brooklyn-ep)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> For more information on works like this, please check out my tumblr.
> 
> Find me here: [tumblr](http://kythen.tumblr.com) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/catcrowcalls)


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